


and it wears you out

by slybrunette



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-12
Updated: 2010-08-12
Packaged: 2017-10-12 16:12:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slybrunette/pseuds/slybrunette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's never the ones you expect; lessons learned too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and it wears you out

**i.**

 

Her fucking pencil keeps tapping.

You fixate, twist your hands over and over until they ball into fists. When you inhale, something inside of you stings.

You want to pin her to the wall. You don't want to have your way with her, you don't want to tear off her clothes and mash your lips against hers – no, it's not that kind of primal urge.

Instead, you long for your hands around someone's throat, anyone's, doesn't need to be hers, and adrenaline surging through your body.

You yearn to feel _something_. Control, release, freedom – you have a feeling you need the first two to even feel some degree of the third.

So you listen to the shrink's questions. Crack a few too many jokes, inappropriate and uncalled for through and through. Look like the ass people expect you to be and no one will press.

You can't really breathe until you're in your car, out of the hospital, the parking lot. Bile rises in your throat, too much acid in your stomach – you haven't eaten all day, and Meredith's given up trying and Lexie doesn't care if it keeps her out of your line of fire, so you're left with the clock in the car ticking past one-thirty and uneasiness permeating through you.

 

 

-

 

 

At Joe's, you make an attempt at beating the shit out of some out-of-towner.

It goes down a lot differently in your head than it does in reality.

You expect blood, a broken nose, probably the cops. You're accustomed to that – spent your fair share of time in juvie. You know how to deal with that; you don't know how to deal with _this_ , the newfound feeling of helplessness, inferiority. Because, the fact is _you_ got taken down by a bullet before you could even blink much less fight back, and it was _your_ screams that filled that conference room, and it's _your_ memory that fails to remember much of it all in anything but snippets.

What you get is Joe eyeing you as you work your way through three drinks, like he's waiting for you to snap. And you do. Some guy says the wrong thing, you get one punch in, and then Joe's got you in a bear hug more or less, with your arms are behind you. He's stronger than you thought he was or you're weaker than you thought you were.

He calls Meredith while you sit in the office you didn't even know he had, and you sit in a chair like a kid waiting for the principal, waiting for detention to be over – something emasculating.

It's not helping anything.

Your scar stings and burns and you can count the number of months it's been since a bullet tore through your flesh on one hand.

When Meredith gets there, she won't stop touching you. Her hand on your cheek, twisting with your fingers as she kneels down in front of you because you won't look up.

"You know better than this," she says, and the thing is you just don't care.

 

 

-

 

 

 **ii.**

 

 

They like to think you're unscathed and you like to believe them.

 

 

-

 

 

He moves too much in his sleep.

Tossing and turning, his arm thrown over your body and then not, his breath against your neck and then not.

Blink, breathe wrong, and it all changes.

You hit him the first few times, closed fist tapping against his forearm with varying degrees of pressure, hoping he'll let up. He doesn't, rather tightens, and every now and then you think of covering his mouth, his nose, with your hand, forcing him to turn away to get some air and let you go.

And let you breathe.

 

 

-

 

 

You were too familiar with Dr. Wyatt, knew too much about her, about the way she operated, for her to really do any good.

You knew too much about the ways to get around her and have her believe you.

 

 

-

 

 

The lunchroom dynamic is all but ruined.

You thought it would be better once Alex got back, once you had something to bounce off of that wasn't Lexie's trying smiles that weren't at all convincing or Meredith's weary expressions.

It's worse.

Alex isn't Alex, or maybe he's the Alex of a different time, and you push him too hard and he gives better than he gets, but it all feels rather empty.

Your throat feels dry but you choke down your salad anyway.

 

 

-

 

 

The creeping feeling along the back of your neck when you walk these halls always feels like the barrel of a gun pressed to your skin.

 

 

-

 

 

 **iii.**

 

 

You take the turns too fast, reckless with stop signs and yellow lights.

You take everything too fast now.

(The most dangerous type of person is one who feels they have nothing left to lose.)

 

 

-

 

 

Meredith confiscates your keys and tells you that you're still supposed to be recovering, like you haven't been doing this longer than she has.

Eventually you get tired of home, of unruly houseguests-turned-roommates, of the sound of Lexie's back hitting a wall in the room over, Alex's room, and the way the downstairs always smells faintly of tequila.

The keys are in the pocket of her winter coat, stored away in the closet.

You leave the closet door open, your only note as to your whereabouts.

 

 

-

 

 

Once, there was to be a white wedding.

A frame on the wall, words that only hold meaning if they let them, has taken its place.

"We should just do it," you say, with her hands grasped tightly in yours, high off of the spontaneity of the moment.

"No," and she's firm, her tone, the line of her mouth, the way she pulls back and you let her hands drop to her sides. "Now isn't a good time."

A better time never really seems to be on the horizon and you can only stare for so long.

 

 

-

 

 

 **iv.**

 

 

You're the strong one, for once, and if anything you think that might be making everything worse for everyone involved.

Role reversal tends to leave people off-kilter.

You see Dr. Wyatt because they tell you to. Because everyone has to, even though you heard Starla, a nurse on the same floor she was on when the second wave of shooting broke out, ended up with an involuntary visit in the psych ward, and Alex got in a bar fight the same day of his first visit.

They're all warning signs but you're choosing to drive past them with a smile on your face to hide the fact that you're just _barely_ holding it together.

But you're still holding it together. And that's more than you can say for the people around you.

 

 

-

 

 

Mark touches you like you're made of glass; you don't know if he's more afraid of you shattering or him getting cut.

You think it's the latter.

You think it's another fucking defense mechanism.

 

-

 

 

"And you live together?"

You can already see the leap she's going to make, like 'living together' might be synonymous for stable relationship.

A laugh bubbles in your throat.

"Yeah, but it's like a group home." You notice the frown, and then you notice your wording, in that order. "Well, it's my sister's house. Half. You know Meredith – of course you do. You probably know everyone." Now it's words bubbling, spilling over, and you should really be more than used to this. "Everyone lives there at some point, I think. So it's not really – it's not the same."

You sort of feel like this is a test of some kind – and you're pretty sure you're failing.

 

 

-

 

 

Alex touches you like he can't break you but he's damn well going to try.

You _know_ what that is.

There's never been a whole hell of a lot of guess work involved with him.

 

 

-

 

 

You're thinking of leaving them both.

You're thinking of driving across state lines and saying to hell with it all.

You're thinking you're being defined by your relationships – because he almost shot you, Mr. Clark almost shot you, and he blamed you, but that's not what they ask about -- and you fail to see how it's all really worth it.

 

 

-

 

 

 **v.**

 

 

People treat you with a degree of heroism that you both don't expect and don't want, afterwards.

You aren't a victim. No one waved a gun in your face. The closest thing to loss you felt was finding out Derek had been shot and by the time that news reached your arms he was already stable. You've operated on worse cases than Karev, and the work you did wasn't even really the half of it.

They seem to be congratulating you for keeping calm under pressure.

Everyone except for her.

 

 

-

 

 

You really never did learn how to stay away from her.

 

 

-

 

 

"You think we ever really had a chance?"

Teddy's expression isn't hopeful; it's grim as she works out the scene in front of her, Owen and Cristina, the way he grabs for her hand. All she can see is the intensity of his eyes, the way his mouth works around words she can't hear. You can see past her tunnel vision, can see the line of Cristina's shoulders, the tension.

The outsider's perspective is always the most enlightening.

"No," you say, and it isn't a lie.

 

 

-

 

 

The days where you wish you had never left New York occur more often as the months pass.

One day it's because of the weather, the next it's because you've still got Karev's blood under your nails and in the fabric of your dark blue scrubs as you throw them out.

Your connections to the life you've built here, few and far in between as they have come, start to wash down the drain with the blood.

 

 

-

 

 

 **vi.**

 

 

You hid in a closet once, and there was Derek and a bag, and you could finally inhale and exhale with some degree of rhythm when you finally left.

Derek isn't there this time.

The door stays closed.

 

 

-

 

 

Alex fights everyone but you.

Never you.

He's too well acquainted with self-preservation to fight the last person in his corner, especially when he knows you don't have it in you right now to come back swinging.

He doesn't give in either, not even when you're in the car on the way back from the bar and asking how his visit with Dr. Wyatt went.

Just that little bit of conversation.

Just that one glimpse into his head.

He asks you to pull over, ten minutes from the house.

And gets out.

You let him walk the rest of the way home and deliberately don't cry over the steering wheel as headlights blind you.

 

 

-

 

 

Dr. Wyatt knows you're hiding something.

Not talking about it keeps you from dealing with it head on.

(They're going to find out eventually; there are too many witnesses and too much weight to the subject and it's all going to come back around for you soon.)

 

 

-

 

 

At least once a week after Derek comes home, you'll look into his eyes and think maybe you lost him on that operating table.

At least once every two, you are sure of it.

 

 

-

 

 

 _fin._


End file.
